Stefani Crabtree
Environment & Society
Associate Professor
Contact Information
Office Hours: By AppointmentOffice Location: NR 355
Phone: (435) 797-0813
Email: stefani.crabtree@usu.edu
Additional Information:
Educational Background
Biography
Stefani A. Crabtree is Associate Professor of Social Environmental Modeling in the Department of Environment and Society of the Quinney College of Natural Resources at Utah State University. Dr. Crabtree holds two Ph.D.s, one from Washington State University (Anthropology, 2016) and one from the Université de Franche-Comté (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et l’Environnement, 2017).
Teaching Interests
Dr. Crabtree is interested in teaching students to learn to see the world in a scientific way, to help students to get over biases and fears when it comes to math and computer programming, and to help students to advance to their own potential for the better understanding of the world and the ways that humans and environments interact.
Research Interests
Dr. Crabtree's current research topics include the human place in ecosystems worldwide, the ability to use the archaeological past to calibrate our understanding of human resilience, and the feedbacks between ecosystem health and human health.
Publications | Books
- Crabtree, S., (2025). Thinking through archaeological complexity. Taylor & Francis
- Crabtree, S., (2025). Understanding Humanity Past and Present via Agent-Based Modeling: 100 Years of Archaeology at the University of Michigan: Essays on the past, present, and future of the discipline. University of Michigan Press
- Crabtree, S., (2025). What Archaeologists Talk About When They Talk About Climate Change..
- Crabtree, S., Paleoclimatology and the early Middle Ages: convergences and divergences.
- Crabtree, S., Understanding Humanity Past and Present via Agent-Based Modeling..
- Crabtree, S., (2020). Continuity in the Face of a Slowly Unfolding Catastrophe:: Going Forward by Looking Back. Berghahn Books
- Crabtree, S., (2017). Chapitre 8. Transition 5 : Modéliser les mutations territoriales de l’âge du Fer dans le midi de la Gaule (VIe-Ve siècles av. J.-C.): Peupler la terre. Presses universitaires François-Rabelais
- Crabtree, S.A, (2012). Exercising the Model: Emergence and Collapse of Early Villages. University of California Press
Publications | Book Chapters
An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.
Publications | Journal Articles
Academic Journal
- Kelly, P.O, Crabtree, S., (2025). Variation in the opinions of residents from urban, rural, and urban-rural municipalities regarding the population size of the European bison (Bison bonasus) in Poland. European Bison Conservation Newsletter, 17, 15--34.
- Crabtree, S., (2024). An Agent-Based Model of Hierarchical Information-Sharing Organizations in Asynchronous Environments. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 27:2
- Crabtree, S., (2024). Mechanisms of hunting native megafauna to extinction by Palaeolithic humans on Cyprus. Springer Science and Business Media LLC, doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3889827/v1
- Crabtree, S., (2024). Mechanisms of hunting native megafauna to extinction by Palaeolithic humans on Cyprus..
- Crabtree, S., (2024). Influential Individuals Can Promote Prosocial Practices in Heterogeneous Societies: A Mathematical and Agent-Based Model..
- Crabtree, S., (2024). Influential individuals can promote prosocial practices in heterogeneous societies: a mathematical and agent-based model. PNAS nexus, 3:7, pgae224.
- Crabtree, S., (2024). The Past as a Stochastic Process.
- Crabtree, S., (2024). An agent-based model of hierarchical information-sharing organizations in asynchronous environments.
- Crabtree, S., (2023). Directionally supervised cellular automaton for the initial peopling of Sahul.. Quaternary Science Reviews, 303:107971, doi: 10.31219/osf.io/a45fw
- Crabtree, S., (2021). A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data. Springer Science and Business Media LLC, doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-131125/v2
- Crabtree, S., (2021). A Global Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Perspective on Modern and Ancient Human Diet. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-61331/v1
- Crabtree, S., (2019). Combining Geographic Information Systems and Agent-Based Models in Archaeology: Part 2 of 3. Advances in Archaeological Practice, 7:2, 185--193.
- Crabtree, S., (2019). An encyclopedia of complex systems. Physics Today, 72:11, 54-55. doi: 10.1063/pt.3.4344
- Crabtree, S., (2015). Examining Social Adaptations in a Volatile Landscape in Northern Mongolia via the Agent-Based Model Ger Grouper. Land, 4:1, 157-181. doi: 10.3390/land4010157
Professional Journal
- Crabtree, S., (2023). Archaeoecology: Using archaeological data to study ecosystems of the human past. PAGE Magazine, 31:1, 4--5. *
- Crabtree, S., (2023). Reproductive inequality in humans and other mammals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 120:22, e2220124120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2220124120
Public or Trade Journal
- Crabtree, S., (2021). We mapped the ‘super-highways’ the First Australians used to cross the ancient land. The Conversation *
An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.
Publications | Other
Other
- Crabtree, S., (2024). Stochastic population projections in Sahul refine the human-refugia hypothesis for early Last Glacial Maximum. Center for Open Science *
- Crabtree, S., (2019). Agent-Based Modeling for Archaeologists: Part 1 of 3. Center for Open Science
- Crabtree, S., (2019). Outreach in Archaeology with Agent-Based Modeling: Part 3 of 3. Advances in Archaeological Practice
An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.
Teaching
Creative Works | Other
- The Landbridge: A World Beneath the Sea, Art - Art Works in Publication,
Graduate Students Mentored
Dr. Stefani A. Crabtree is an Assistant Professor in Socio-Environmental Modeling in the Department of Environment and Society of the Quinney College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Utah State University. She additionally holds external affiliation at four institutions: The Santa Fe Institute as external Research Fellow, Research Associate at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Fellow at the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires Paris, and Research Associate at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage. Her research applies complex systems science modeling methodologies (such as agent-based modeling and network science) to problems in social science and ecology. Current research topics include the human place in ecosystems worldwide, the ability to use the archaeological past to calibrate our understanding of human resilience, and the feedbacks between ecosystem health and human health. Crabtree has published in general science and disciplinary journals across social science and ecology, including Nature Human Behaviour, PNAS, Current Anthropology, Ecological Modelling, American Antiquity, Physics Today, Human Ecology, Journal of Archaeological Science, and Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. Dr. Crabtree holds two Ph.Ds, one from Washington State University (Anthropology, 2016) and one from the Université de Franche-Comté (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et l’Environnement, 2017).
Dr. Crabtree regularly teaches ENVS 4100: Agent-based Modeling of Human Environment Systems and ENVS 6901: Introduction to Methodologies in Social Science.
Dr. Crabtree is interested in bringing on motivated Ph.D. students who want to use network analysis and agent-based modeling to understand the human-environmental interface. Please contact her directly at stefani.crabtree@usu.edu
Graduate Students
Evan Holt- Ph.D. Environment and Society
Ray Kahler- Ph.D. Environment and Society
Patrick Kelly- Ph.D. Environment and Society